The Alabama Insert

A Call for Impartial Science

by Norris Anderson
May 15, 1996

"Most Alabamians know by now that the state Board of Education
voted last month to paste a warning label inside biology texts
used in public schools...The push to adopt this label was provided
by religious fundamentalists whose fear of science is rooted in
a poor understanding of the methods of science...Must we now portray
Alabama as a state that mocks science, confuses its children,
insults its teachers and trivializes religious faith?" (From
December 8, 1995, Mobile Press Register editorial)

This quotation is an example of a highly emotional reaction
to the Alabama State Board of Education's decision to place an
educational aid at the beginning of all high school biology texts.
Is this reaction warranted? The purpose of this paper is to present
the data upon which the State Board of Education's decision was
based, and to allow the readers to make up their own minds.

The Problem

What constitutes good science teaching? The answer to this
question determines the shape of the science curriculum and the
type of textbooks selected. In 1995, Alabama's answer to this
question changed the direction of science teaching in the state:

"Scientific literacy for all Alabama students serves
as the goal of Alabama's K-12 Science Education Program. ...Scientific
literacy enhances a person's ability to observe perceptively,
reflect thoughtfully upon those observations, and comprehend
the explanations offered. ...The K-12 science program is an inquiry-based
program that allows for observation, discovery, prediction, problem-solving,
theory usage, appreciation of the natural world, and finally
a fascination with the scientific quest" (Alabama Course
of Study Science, Bulletin 1995, No. 4, p. 1).

Alabama determined that good science teaching uses inquiry-based
methods to reach the goal of "scientific literacy."
The "Alabama Course of Study Science" gives further
operational definitions of "inquiry-based methods" under
the category of "required scientific processes." For
example, required scientific processes for the Biology Core include:

The Alabama State Board of Education also adopted an amendment
to the entire Course of Study which reads in part: "Explanations
of the origin of life and major groups of plants and animals,
including humans, shall be treated as theory and not as fact."
This statement was adopted to insure that the controversial topic
of origins is treated in a fair, impartial way, and subject to
the same rules of inquiry as any other area of study.

The "Alabama Course of Study Science" is the standard
for evaluating all science textbooks. It is the main tool used
by the State Textbook Committee in determining which textbooks
are acceptable for adoption. The problem faced by the 1995 State
Textbook Committee, of which I was a member, was how to avoid
a major train wreck between the "Alabama Course of Study
Science"and the current crop of inquiry-deficient science
textbooks submitted by mainline publishers.

When teaching evolutionary theory, current science textbooks
read more like a catechism than scientific literature - they give
the appearance of trying to indoctrinate rather than educate.
They fail to meet high standards of good science education by
inadequately defining terms, by presenting assumptions as conclusions,
by not distinguishing between scientific evidence and inference,
and by omitting all discussion of anomalous scientific data and
unsolved problems.

An article in "The American Biology Teacher" analyzed
1991 biology textbooks and found the same problem of impeding
the acquisition of critical thinking skills as we find in the
1995-96 editions:

...(I)t should be apparent that the errors, overstatements
and omissions that we have noted in these biology texts, all
tend to enhance the plausibility of hypotheses that are presented.
More importantly, the inclusion of outdated material and erroneous
discussions is not trivial. The items noted mislead students
and impede their acquisition of critical thinking skills. If
we fail to teach students to examine data critically, looking
for points both favoring and opposing hypotheses, we are selling
our youth short and mortgaging the future of scientific inquiry
itself " ("Origin of Life Evolution in Biology Textbooks
- A Critique," Mills, Lancaster, Bradley, The American Biology
Teacher, Volume 55, No. 2, February, 1993, p. 83)

Good principles of science education have been sacrificed for
a perceived greater good - to protect the theory of Darwinism.
Eugenie Scott, Executive Director of the National Center for Science
Education, contends:

"In my opinion, using creation and evolution as topics
for critical-thinking exercises in primary and secondary schools
is virtually guaranteed to confuse students about evolution and
may lead them to reject one of the major themes of science"
(The Sciences, New York Academy of Science, January/February,
1996, pp. 20-25).

Perceived threats often lead to extreme reactions. The danger
is the development of a type of scientific McCarthyism in which
those who make constructive criticisms are lumped with "the
enemy" and their comments dismissed. The purpose of the Alabama
Insert is not to bring any "ism" into the science classroom.
On the contrary, its purpose is to keep "isms" out and
to insure that science is taught objectively.

The Insert

"A Message from the Alabama State Board of Education"

"This textbook discusses evolution, a controversial theory
some scientists present as a scientific explanation for the origin
of living things, such as plants, animals and humans. No one
was present when life first appeared on earth. Therefore, any
statement about life's origins should be considered as theory,
not fact."

The Insert's introductory statements correct a problem
found in many textbooks: confusing data with inference. For example,
one textbook reads:

"...(N)early all biologists now see evolution as an extensively
documented feature of life, much as historians who did not personally
witness the U.S. Civil War are convinced, based on an accumulation
of evidence, that the war really happened" (Biology,
Campbell, Benjamin/Cummings, Addison-Wesley, 1993, p.12).

The critical difference between these phenomena is that no
written eye-witness documents exist for macro-evolutionary events.
Written eye-witness records do exist for the Civil War.

As any historian knows, interpreting a past event without eye-witness
documents requires a greater degree of sophistication and hypothetical
interpretation than if such documents exist. The fossil record
is not a written document, but a collection of artifacts subject
to interpretation based on selected assumptions. Fossils are analogous
to artifacts such as canteens, cannons, and swords found on a
battlefield. The fossil record contains nothing analogous to diaries
or military documents.

The attempt to establish a false analogy between fossils and
a written record does not serve the goal of teaching science as
inquiry. The goal should not be to convince students of the validity
of a given interpretation - as attempted by the authors of Understanding
Biology: "...if the principle of evolution is central
to biology, then we ought to be able to convince our students
of its validity" (Times Mirror Mosby, 1998, p. vi). Instead,
the goal should be to show the true nature of data and how to
interpret it. To call an explanation a "theory" is not
to demean it, but to show the type of interpretation required.

"The word "evolution" may refer to many types
of change. Evolution describes changes that occur within a species.
(White moths, for example, may "evolve" into gray moths.)
This process is microevolution, which can be observed and described
as fact. Evolution may also refer to the change of one living
thing to another, such as reptiles into birds. This process,
called macroevolution, has never been observed and should be
considered a theory. Evolution also refers to the unproven belief
that random, undirected forces produced a world of living things."
(continuation from the Alabama Insert)

Good science education is based on the accurate definition
and use of terms. Unfortunately, the word "evolution"
is used in such an ambiguous manner as to actually be misleading.
Here are some examples:

Note that these first two definitions could also apply to aging,
migrations, and the effects of weight lifting. One book has a
section entitled "Evolution on the Farm"(Science
Interactions, Glencoe, 1995, Course Three, p. 557). "Evolution"
does not even appear in the glossary of Biological Science
An Ecological Approach (BSCS Green Version). Some books refer
to designs by human intelligence as analogous to evolutionary
events:

"In the previous investigation, you gathered evidence
that bicycles have changed a lot in the past 170 years....In
this investigation, you will examine evidence for change in horses"
(Middle School Science And Technology, BSCS, Kendall/Hunt
Publishing Company, 1994, Level C, p. 108).

Note how the following definition blurs the distinction between
what is an inferred process and what is an observed process:

"evolution: process by which modern organisms have descended
from ancient organisms; any change in the relative frequencies
of alleles in the gene pool of a population" (Biology,
Miller Levine, Prentice Hall, 1995, reference / p.29).

The second part of the definition refers to the process used
to produce different breeds of dogs such as poodles or fox terriers.
Once this definition is established, the book then treats evolution
as "fact" (a directly observed process) because part
of the definition includes a process that is observed. Thus, a
big jump is made from micro-evolution (variations within a species)
which is an observed process to macro-evolution (formation of
major groups of life forms) which is an unobserved inference from
fossils and other data. This linguistic slight of hand confuses
rather than instructs students in the proper methods of scientific
inquiry.

Perhaps the most important definitional clarification is that
"evolution" can also refer to the unsupported belief
that random, undirected forces produced a world of living things.
The greatest failures of the texts are that philosophical assumptions
are not identified, and that such assumptions are treated as "scientific
knowledge". An unwarranted world view is presented to students
under the color of scientific authority and knowledge. The following
quotations illustrate this problem:

"We can learn a great deal about the nature of life by
comparing body systems among invertebrate groups and by tracing
the patterns of change as we move from one phylum to another.
As we do so, it is important to keep this concept in mind: Evolution
is random and undirected. ...In many ways, each animal phylum
represents an experiment in the design of body structures to
perform the tasks necessary for survival. Of course, there has
never been any kind of plan to these experiments because evolution
works without either plan or purpose" (Biology, Miller
Levine, Prentice Hall, 1995, p. 658).

"One of the great wonders of our existence and of life
itself is that it has all arisen through a combination of evolutionary
processes and chance events (Biology Concepts and Connections,
Benjamin Cummings, 1994, p. 390).

Statements such as "evolution works without either plan
or purpose" illustrate that Darwinism is a theory with explicitly
anti-theistic implications. Clearly, those who promote Darwinianism
as fact have a theological ax to grind:

"...the material world is all that exists...there is
nothing supernatural, no God or gods, no creator, no creation"
(Monkey Business, Eugenie Scott, New York Academy of Science,
Jan/Feb 1996, pp. 20-25).

To teach this philosophy uncritically in state schools establishes
a religion antagonistic to all theistic views. Students who are
theists (such as Muslims, Christians, Jews) are misled by switches
back and forth between a scientific meaning of evolution and an
ideological one. By identifying the ideological meaning of evolution
the Insert helps to create a more impartial science classroom,
one that, hopefully, is free of religious biases.

"There are many unanswered questions about the origin
of life which are not mentioned in your textbooks, including:

Why did the major groups of animals suddenly appear in the
fossil record (known as the Cambrian Explosion)?

Why have no new major groups of living things appeared in
the fossil record in a long time?

Why do major groups of plants and animals have no transitional
forms in the fossil record?

How did you and all living things come to possess such a complete
and complex set of "instructions" for building a living
body?

Study hard and keep an open mind. Someday you may contribute
to the theories of how living things appeared on earth."
(continuation of the Alabama Insert)

Missing in current texts is one of the key elements of teaching
science as inquiry. This element is described in materials pioneered
in 1963 by the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study (BSCS)
using the coined word "enquiry":

"The teaching of science as enquiry would also include
a fair treatment of the doubts and incompleteness of science
and indicate the possibility that through the advance of enquiry
scientific knowledge can change" (Biology Teachers' Handbook,
John Wiley and Sons, New York, 1963, p. 41).

In most biology texts reviewed by the State Textbook Committee
no mention is made of any problems with current theories of origins.
The texts read more like a legal brief than an objective presentation
of a theory subject to continual re-evaluation and modification.
These texts deprive students of information that would help them
evaluate what is being taught and that would stimulate them intellectually.
Students should be exposed to evidences at variance with the prevailing
Darwinian theory. The Insert attempts to remedy this problem by
highlighting several areas where further research is needed.

All texts, except one, omit any reference to one of the most
classic and intriguing problems - the Cambrian explosion. As Time
magazine expresses it:

"For billions of years, simple creatures like plankton,
bacteria and algae ruled the earth. Then, suddenly, life got
very complicated"("Evolution's Big Bang," Time,
December 4, 1995, p. 67).

"Suddenly" is the operative word. All phyla but one
appeared during 10 million years of the Cambrian explosion, 530
million years ago. Why so fast? Why no new phyla level body plans
since the "explosion?" Why no transitional forms between
the phyla? The uniqueness of the Cambrian explosion is summarized
by James Valentine, Douglas Erwin, and David Jablonski:

"The paleontological data are consistent with the view
that all of the currently recognized phyla had evolved by about
525 Ma. Despite half a billion years of evolutionary exploration
by the clades generated in Cambrian time, no new phylum-level
designs have appeared since then" ("Developmental Evolution
of Metazoan Bodyplans: The Fossil Evidence," Valentine,
Erwin, and Jablonski, Developmental Biology 173, Article
No. 0033, 1996, p. 376).

Why are students not informed about this explosive pattern
of phyla origins as well as that it is at variance with Darwinian
predictions? Is there a fear that they will "lose faith"
in the alleged power of natural selection? The first three questions
in the Insert touch on phenomena related to the Cambrian Explosion
and will challenge students to think more deeply about theories
of origins. Shame on the textbooks for omitting information about
evolution's "big bang."

The last question in the Insert points to a very challenging
problem for contemporary evolutionary theory - the origin of information.
I have on my desk a guide to using Windows 95. It is composed
of paper, glue, and ink. But is that all? The paper, glue, and
ink serve only as material carriers for the manual's most important
ingredient, instructions on how to use the program. An organism's
DNA is directly analogous to my manual. No current proposed evolutionary
mechanism can account satisfactorily for the origin of information.
Information has never been shown to arise from any type of random,
chance based mechanism.

This last question in the insert also opens the door for a
thoughtful analysis of the major mechanism of evolution, natural
selection. Some texts treat natural selection as the prime "creative"
force in the biological world:

"Darwin not only stated that evolution has occurred,
he also proposed its mechanism - Natural selection" (Biology
Visualizing Life, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1994, p. 186).

The power of natural selection is then demonstrated by reference
to minor variations such as color change in peppered moths, beaks
of finches, and antibiotic resistance in bacteria.

From these examples of minor variations, a huge jump is made
to the assumption (presented as knowledge) that the major phyla
were produced by the creative work of natural selection. This
is a particularly difficult jump because natural selection is
unable to account for the origin of the genetic information required
to generate the new phyla produced during the "short"
ten million years of the Cambrian explosion. The failure of the
mechanisms of microevolution to explain the process of macroevolution
is highlighted in a recent paper:

"Microevolution looks at adaptations that concern only
the survival of the fittest, not the arrival of the fittest"
("Resynthesizing Evolutionary and Developmental Biology,"
Scott Gilbert, John Opitz, and Rudolf Raff, Developmental
Biology 173, Article No. 0032, 1996, p. 361).

Science educators must avoid making unwarranted extrapolations
from minor variations to major innovations as is common in the
textbooks.

It is also hard to conceive how natural selection can account
for certain biochemical and physical structures exhibiting "irreducible
complexity." Picture three mouse traps each with a part missing.
Which of the three would natural selection select? The answer
is, none. A mouse trap is an irreducibly complex structure because
ALL of its parts must be present for it to have any meaningful
function. Natural selection cannot select if its object has no
function. In a soon-to-be published book (Darwin's Black Box,
The Free Press, A Division of Simon and Schuster, NY) Michael
Behe discusses several irreducibly complex biochemical and biological
structures that cannot have emerged gradually via natural selection.
Examples include the cilium, blood clotting, antibodies, and cellular
regulation mechanisms.

What then is the role of natural selection? Again, the textbooks
do a disservice to thinking students by relating natural selection
only to the process of change. The main observable function of
natural selection - stabilization - is practically ignored. Natural
selection can be observed to preserve a population from radical
harmful changes, and to provide a plasticity in the midst of changing
environments. Perhaps the process should be renamed "natural
stabilization," and a new mechanism sought for major innovation.
The textbooks fail to stimulate student inquiry when they treat
only the strengths and not the weaknesses of natural selection
as a creative force. They also fail, as mentioned before, when
they make unwarranted extrapolations from minor variations to
major innovations. Hopefully, the Insert will help promote the
objective discussion of evolutionary mechanisms.

The inclusion of questions in the Insert has elicited many
attacks such as the following from a letter to the editor:

"The most misleading part of the disclaimer is the list
of so-called 'unanswered questions about the origin of life'
- particularly the three pertaining to 'major groups,' which
are actually inaccurate assertions calculated to convince students
that the fossil record does not support evolution. Such misrepresentations
of the evidence are the stock-in-trade of 'scientific creationism'"
(The Harbinger, December, 1995, p. 3).

The issue is not whether the fossil record does or does not
support the highly manipulative word, "evolution." The
critical point is that the pattern of appearance of the phyla
in the fossil record does not support the primary Darwinian mechanism,
natural selection, that is reported to have created them. As is
the case with most of the attacks on the insert, the authors of
the attacks see the purpose of the insert as opening the door
for the teaching of "creationism". This is the same
type of unwarranted fear that has produced a crop of textbooks
more dedicated to indoctrination than to education. The real purpose
of the insert is to avoid indoctrination of any kind and to stimulate
scientific inquiry. The rationale for the questions in the Insert
is best expressed in the following quotation:

"The conservatism in the treatment of evolution at the
introductory level is also reflected in the concentration on
seemingly solved problems As practicing scientists, much of what
we talk about, think about and occasionally even work on are
problems which are not solved. Much of the pleasure of being
an evolutionary biologist is speculating on the answers to unanswered
questions. Nevertheless, in teaching evolution at the introductory
level, we tend to avoid giving students the opportunity to participate
in these speculations by presenting pat nonsolutions - to see
what I mean just consider the treatment of the evolution of sex
in most introductory texts. While the display of humility in
the face of unanswered questions may tarnish our facade of authority,
the recognition of our limitations and the realization that they
can make significant contributions to speculative discussions
will certainly increase student interest and self-confidence.
Indeed, with their relative absence of preconception and bias,
their contributions are likely to be even greater than ours"
(Bones of Contention: Controversies in the Search for Human
Origins, Lewin, R., Simon and Schuster, New York, 1987, p.
452).

Conclusion

As one who was involved with promoting the Alabama Insert I
can honestly say that I am unaware of any attempt to use the Insert
to bring creationism into the classroom. On the contrary, the
reasons for supporting the Insert were to keep religious indoctrination
out of the science classroom, whether it be theistic or anti-theistic,
and to promote full disclosure of both the strengths and weaknesses
of all scientific theories.

Bradly Byrne (D), Alabama State School Board member from Mobile,
gives a clear statement of the board's motives for adopting the
Insert:

"Many persons including some scientists, believed that
the textbooks taught evolution as an established and absolute
fact instead of presenting it as a scientific theory. Others,
including some scientists, did not feel that the textbooks inappropriately
addressed evolution. The state board resolved the issue by approving
the textbooks without any deletions and by adopting a statement
for inclusion in high school biology textbooks. The statement
does not mention religion or creationism. It does state that
evolution is a scientific theory and not an observable fact,
then differentiates between microevolution and macroevolution,
and raises certain scientific questions which challenge the material
offered in the main text. This statement was endorsed by science
professors from major state universities, scientists in the private
sector and physicians and dentists from around the state"
(Mobile Register, Nov. 19, 1995).

Some have questioned why explanations of evolutionary theory
should be "targeted" with an educational aid such as
the Alabama Insert. Evolutionary theory is so poorly taught that
an insert is required. Many other theories do not require an insert
because they are presented properly in the texts examined by the
Textbook Committee. For example, here is the exemplary way in
which one text treats the Big Bang Theory:

"Was there a Big Bang? No one knows, but you now know
some of the evidence" (Project Star, Kendall Hunt
Publishing Company, 1993, p. 321).

If evolutionary theory were presented in the same way, there
would be no need for an insert. We hope the Insert will motivate
publishers to correct their textbooks and bring them into conformity
with the inquiry requirements of the State of Alabama.

Finally, I would like to appeal both to those who strongly
defend current evolutionary theory and to those who perceive its
weaknesses. We have an opportunity through discussion and disagreement
to be good role models for students. Let us put aside ad hominem
arguments, and let us debate ideas. Let us not impugn one another's
motives, but let us work together to improve science education.
Let us not allow our philosophical beliefs to divide us, but let
our belief in the search for truth be the shared value that unites
us.